Removal of brilliant green and procionred dyes from aqueous solutionby adsorption using selected agricultural wastes

Approximately 10-15 % of usage synthetic textile dyes are released to waste streams meanwhile the effluent release from wastewater treatment plant contribute 20 %. adsorption being a physical process,inexpensive and less time consuming,is widely accepted to eliminate dyes from wastewater. an experiment was carried out to observe the adsorption of brilliant green and procion red dye. the experiment is to identify the most effective adsorbent to remove the colour of brilliant green and procion red. both dyes were mixed with the agricultural wastes,spent tea leaves,jackfruit peels,rambutan peels,and mangosteen peels. the percentage of removal and adsorption capacity of the dyes were examined. rambutan peels were the most effective adsorbent to remove brilliant green which is 96.42 % with 9.64 mg/g adsorption capacity,whereas for procion red,jackfruit peels were recorded as the highest percentage of removal,61.2 % with 6.12 mg/g adsorption capacity in 24 hours. based on fesem and ftir results,the effectiveness of adsorbents was affected by the structure of the adsorbent,presence of pores and functional groups. functional group of carbonyl and carboxyl helps in the adsorption process and will form bonds with the dyes and thus remove them from the solution. © 2015 penerbit utm press. all rights reserved.